School children learning how to identify finds. (Above) A flint tool found at Clarkly Hill. Copyright: Leanne Demay Moray Archaeology For All Project ational Museums Scotland have been excavating in Moray since 1994. Digs at Birnie (near Elgin) and Clarkly Hill (near Burghead) helped us to understand the Iron Age people of the area, their links to the Roman world, and the development of the Picts. The work has allowed lots of local people to help out with the digging, and hundreds of schoolchildren have been able to experience archaeology first-hand. N But archaeology does not stop when the digging finishes. Thanks to funding from Moray LEADER and the Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation, the Moray Archaeology For All project has let people look behind the scenes to see what happens before, during and after an excavation, take part in the activities, and learn new skills. Digging Clarkly Hill The earliest visitors? (c. 6000 4000 BC) The excavations at Clarkly Hill in 2013 gave people the chance to find out about the archaeology on their doorstep. Four trenches told a story of 8,000 years of human history in the area. (Right) In the far corner of this trench are the stones of a Bronze Age monument. In front are remains of a more recent building. Traces of the earliest people in Scotland are rare we usually only see scatters of their stone tools. Finds of small flint tools at Clarkly Hill suggest that huntergatherer groups were operating in the area between 6000 and 8000 years ago. The site lay on the edge of the former Roseisle loch a perfect spot for camping, hunting and fishing. Bronze Age rituals (c. 2500 1500 BC) (Below) School children learning how to build an Iron Age roundhouse. One of our trenches was full of surprises. We found two large boulders and several smaller stones enclosed by a circular ditch. This was a monument of the Bronze Age a site for ceremonies and rituals. It is a totally unexpected chapter in the history of the area.
Moray Archaeology For All Project (Above) A roundhouse recreated by the diggers, with a circle of posts to hold up the roof and cows in the byre. Iron Age occupants (c. 800 BC AD 400) The latest visitors (c. AD 2013) The field was used as a farm during the Iron Age, about 2000 years ago. The latest inhabitants of the field were the volunteers and university students who took part in the excavations and the visitors and school children who toured the site. Two roundhouses were excavated in 2013. These were big buildings, up to 19m in diameter, and may have had two floors. They were made of turf and timber traces survived of holes for posts and the collapsed turf wall. Some had a byre for the animals the people and their herd lived under the one roof. Iron Age craft (Above) The curving foundations of a roundhouse can be seen in the corner of this trench. The later workshops are the dark blobs in the top left corner. (Right) School children searching for finds in soil taken from the trenches. Our earlier excavations showed that Clarkly Hill was a centre for iron production a vital raw material. In 2013 traces of a different craft were found several fragments of crucibles for melting bronze came from a small building. This rare find suggests Clarkly Hill was a focus of craft production in the region. Acknowledgements Moray Archaeology for All was funded by the Scottish Government and the European Community LEADER 2007 2013 programme, the Gordon and Ena Baxter Foundation, and National Museums Scotland. The excavations were funded by the Welsh Family Trust, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Association for Roman Archaeology, the Moray Society, the Moray Field Club and the Keillar family. School groups were given a tour of the trenches and had the chance to see the finds close-up. They also made their own discoveries by sieving the mounds of soil which had been removed, and helped to build a reconstruction roundhouse.
A clay bellows-shield, used in metal-working, being excavated. A steatite lamp after it has been cleaned in post-excavation work. This example was found at Clarkly Hill in 2012. Moray Archaeology For All Project ational Museums Scotland have been excavating in Moray since 1994. Digs at Birnie (near Elgin) and Clarkly Hill (near Burghead) helped us to understand the Iron Age people of the area, their links to the Roman world, and the development of the Picts. The work has allowed lots of local people to help out with the digging, and hundreds of schoolchildren have been able to experience archaeology first-hand. N But archaeology does not stop when the digging finishes. Thanks to funding from Moray LEADER and the Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation, the Moray Archaeology For All project has let people look behind the scenes to see what happens before, during and after an excavation, take part in the activities, and learn new skills. Sifting through the finds The ancient environment The job isn t over when the digging is done. There is lots of work still to do soil samples to be processed, finds to be washed, records to be entered into a database and reports to be written. Results so far show that in the Iron Age oak branches were the main building material, with bigger trunks for key structural components. Pine, hazel and alder were also used. The main crop was barley, just like today, but people also gathered some wild resources like brambles and sloes. This post-excavation process takes longer than the dig itself, but the work is vital because it allows us to analyse the evidence more closely than we could in the field. Washing the soil! We process the soil samples that were taken during excavation by bubbling water through them. It s a technique called flotation. This allows lighter material like seeds and charcoal to float to the surface and be collected. This material is too small to spot when you re digging but is very important evidence. It can tell us what people in the past were growing and eating, and what they were using to build their houses. Two Iron Age shale bangle fragments found at Clarkly Hill in 2013. The material is not local these came from across the Moray Firth, at Brora. (Above) Volunteers cleaning debris from ancient iron production. Copyright: David Anderson (Right) Flotation of soil samples to recover seeds and charcoal.
Moray Archaeology For All Project (Above) Volunteers cataloguing the pottery found during fieldwalking. Copyright: Christine Clerk (Right) A tiny Iron Age glass bead found during residue sorting. Artefacts found included flints, iron-working slag and pottery. The nicest find was a tiny 2000-year-old yellow glass bead only 3mm in diameter. Order from chaos Archaeology creates lots of paperwork because we record what we find in detail. Digitising this archive is the first step in writing the reports for the site. Dating the site The seeds and charcoal from flotation can also tell us when people used the site. Material that was once alive, like plants, charcoal and bone, can be radiocarbon-dated. This showed that the site of Birnie was intensively occupied for about 400 years, from about 200 BC to AD 200. Many of the structures were occupied at the same, suggesting that Birnie was a small village and not just a farm. We hope to get dates for Clarkly Hill as soon as we have some more funding. The volunteers have been typing up the records for the Clarkly Hill 2013 excavations. These are now being used by museum archaeologists to create a full report on the site and its finds. (Above) A volunteer using tweezers to sort a soil sample residue looking for tiny finds. Copyright: David Anderson Sorting the residue All the heavier stone and gravel left over from the flotation process is collected and dried. Volunteers at the Falconer museum then sorted the material using tweezers, looking for tiny artefacts hidden among the stones. Acknowledgements (Above) Two fragments of Roman Samian pottery found in a ritual deposit at Clarkly Hill in 2012. Moray Archaeology for All was funded by the Scottish Government and the European Community LEADER 2007 2013 programme, the Gordon and Ena Baxter Foundation, and National Museums Scotland.
Moray Archaeology For All Project (Above) Iron Age roundhouse excavated at Clarkly Hill. A circle of dark blobs mark where posts once supported the roof. The curving band of dark soil is the area where the cows would have been stabled, inside the house. ational Museums Scotland have been excavating in Moray since 1994. Digs at Birnie (near Elgin) and Clarkly Hill (near Burghead) helped us to understand the Iron Age people of the area, their links to the Roman world, and the development of the Picts. The work has allowed lots of local people to help out with the digging, and hundreds of schoolchildren have been able to experience archaeology first-hand. N But archaeology does not stop when the digging finishes. Thanks to funding from Moray LEADER and the Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation, the Moray Archaeology For All project has let people look behind the scenes to see what happens before, during and after an excavation, take part in the activities, and learn new skills. Finding and understanding new sites Volunteers have roamed the fields of Moray looking for sites with industrial activity in the Iron Age. Iron-working slag was rarely found, suggesting iron production was restricted. By contrast, we discovered lots of slag at Clarkly Hill and Birnie, suggesting these were centres specialising in iron manufacture. One of the aims of the MAFA project was to get a better understanding of Moray s past. The excavations at Clarkly Hill gave a snapshot of the story in one area, but what about elsewhere? We cannot excavate everything sometimes archaeologists need to use other methods of investigation. Two of the main techniques to find and understand buried sites are geophysical survey and fieldwalking. The past from the ploughsoil (Right) A typical archaeologist, as imagined by the children of Mosstodloch Primary school who visited the site. Fieldwalking involves systematic walking over freshlyploughed fields, picking up surface finds disturbed by the plough and plotting their location using GPS. This gives us clues to what lies buried under the soil. Volunteers walking over a ploughed field, carefully gathering and plotting any finds in their pursuit of new archaeological sites. Copyright: David Anderson The survey did produce evidence for early activity, in the form of scatters of flint tools and quern stones, as well as Medieval pottery. As we analyse the results, we ll get a much better idea of how the excavated sites fit into the wider landscape.
Moray Archaeology For All Project Geophysics The black patches on the survey map indicate burning and rubbish dumping caused by human action. There are also traces of buried structures, including some roundhouses. This work has revealed an unknown farm, lost for more than 2000 years. Geophysical survey uses sensitive machines to measure variations in the earth s resistance or magnetism. These are caused by human actions such as burning, dumping of rubbish and the digging of pits and other features. (Above) The curving dark line shows the location of a ditch around a massive enigmatic enclosure at Easter Calcots. Copyright: Dr Tessa Poller We targeted a number of fields throughout Moray where sites were already known or where stray finds had suggested the potential for buried archaeology. Romano-British brooch found at Stonewells. Copyright: National Museums Scotland A mysterious enclosure At Easter Calcots (east of Elgin), the geophysics helped to define a massive enclosure ditch. The site lies in a bend in the River Lossie, but its date is still a mystery fieldwalking has not offered many clues yet. An unknown farm The discovery of a Romano-British brooch led the geophysics team to Stonewells, near Urquhart. Could this stray find be a clue to a buried settlement? (Above) Geophysics in an empty field at Stonewells revealed black anomalies from Iron Age houses and other features. Copyright: Dr Tessa Poller Acknowledgements Moray Archaeology for All was funded by the Scottish Government and the European Community LEADER 2007 2013 programme, the Gordon and Ena Baxter Foundation, and National Museums Scotland.